Follow the trials and tribulations of the New York Knights in the United States Chess League

Monday, September 29, 2014

Weeks 4 and 5: A win is a win

We had our best match in a long time (perhaps since week 2
last year against Manhattan) in week
4, a 3-1 victory over the Applesauce.I managed to equalize quickly with black on
board 2 against IM Farai Mandizha .NM Alex
King won a very smooth game against NM Levy
Rozman in a Dutch on board 3, centralizing all his pieces and capitalizing
when Rozman blundered. NM Gary Huang
earned a GOTW nomination for his sacrificial demolition of Shaun Smith on board 4 out of a normally quiet QGD. GM Pascal Charbonneau gave a master class
on handling Ruy Lopez sidelines and maintained a clear advantage throughout
against IM Victor Shen, before agreeing to a draw with the match
already in hand.

Week 5 was an altogether different story.The Connecticut
Dreadnoughts were fresh off a stunning upset against the previously perfect
St Louis Archbishops.

Board 1 featured a US Championship rematch between GM Gata Kamsky and GM Alex Lenderman.Gata gradually equalized and looked to
have seized the initiative with the plan of b7-b5-b4.

Board 4 was very puzzling. NM Yoon-Young Kim surprised NM Qibiao
Wang with the Schliemann.Qibiao chose a line that allowed black
to equalize without too much trouble. The game still seemed to go according to
script as the stronger player improved his position and, out of nowhere,
emerged with a completely winning R+P ending.

There were many simple methods to convert. To
Kim's credit he set and sprung one
of the few tricks in the position: a pseudo-rook sacrifice, with capture
leading to immediate stalemate. Neither player was in time trouble, but things
started to go wrong for Kim as he seemingly did not know the Philidor defense and instead chose
(still keeping the draw, but odd) to move his rook to the back rank.The final blunder came on move 82 and white
queened his pawn and won the game.

Board 3 featured two of the country's top juniors. SM Josh Colas chose a placid line against
SM Nico Checa's QGD.Nico quickly
equalized and seemed to have everything under control. Colas is known for his tactical awareness and won a pawn when Nico blundered with

24. ..Qb6?,
leaving the back rank undefended. Nico defended
well and could have set white tremendous problems with the shot

I had white on board 2 against GM Oliver Barbosa. Barbosa chose the Berlin and I sacrificed a pawn,
then an exchange, a piece and finally a rook. He defended well and the game
ended in perpetual.I could have played
for more with the "greedy" 31. Rh6 (playing on down only a single
rook), but 31. ..Rh8! is quite unclear and we were both playing on the
increment. The joint effort was nominated for GOTW, finishing 3rd behind
Lenderman-Kamsky and Bartell-Stukopin.Many thanks to our sponsors, ChessNYC!